


The Depth and Passion of Its Earnest Glance

by Quillori



Category: Demon In A Glass Case - Paul Roland (Song), Inspired by Music - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-23
Updated: 2013-09-23
Packaged: 2017-12-27 11:36:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/978406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quillori/pseuds/Quillori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fragments from the catalogue of a distinguished collector.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Depth and Passion of Its Earnest Glance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nary/gifts).



> The [song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WP9f6mwcZhs) lyrics can be found [here](http://www.leoslyrics.com/paul-roland/demon-in-a-glasscase-lyrics/), and I think you do need to be familiar with them to follow this.

**Item: A small hand mirror of Polish workmanship, circa 16th C. The mercury backing is badly damaged.**

This was the very start of my collection: I can't have been more than nineteen when I came across it in the back of some antique shop. Well, I say antique, but really it was no better than a junk shop - I was still a student, so of course that's all I could afford in those days. Indeed, I think I was looking not for antiquities but for cheap books, for at the time reading was my great love, and there was nothing I enjoyed more than to explore those realms that previous thinkers had mapped out. But this mirror ... it was only chance I gave it a second look: something seemed reflected in it that didn't relate to the dark, poky confines of the shop, and when I picked it up and studied it more closely, I found if I turned it this way and that I could catch glimpses in its depths, badly obscured by the damage of time but still recognizable, of a richly dressed and beautiful young woman. I don't think I really appreciated at the time what I'd found - at nineteen I was more interested in identifying the mysterious woman - but of course it turned out to be Twardowski's own mirror, which was quite a find, despite its condition.

**Item: Recipe for a fast day**

Take a basketful of Tartary Lambs, when they be ripe, and take from them their rind. They cry quite pitifully, and are as like to put you in tears as the onion you should also prepare for this dish. Put them to a pan with the onions and a little salt and drown them with water, at which both causes for your tears will cease. Season well with with colyaunder, cymen, tears of Chios, a quill of korunda, long pepper and gingifer. Boil the little lambs until their vegetable flesh is tender. Take dry Armenian apples and boil them lightly. Strain the nectar and to it add meal of almonds. Sprinkle with rosewater and bring forth to the table.

**Item: A bronze clock-work statue of Neptune, Tyrolean. Circa 16th C.**

Another early piece in my collection, not very distinguished but perhaps holding some interest - it's unusual to find these still in working order. If you wind it up here you can set it all in motion. Look how the sea horse writhes and bucks as though it were alive! And now Neptune succeeds in capturing it with his net and as the mechanism winds down it seems as though he is subduing it, until it finally stills completely. At that time clockwork was little understood and not unreasonably taken as sorcery by the common man. Only a few adepts shared the secrets of mechanical workmanship amongst themselves, and indeed the master who created this was subsequently burned alive for practicing witchcraft outside the confines of the Church; later he was pardoned and a mass said for his soul when his type of craft became better understood.

 **Item: A work by Theophrastus von Hohenheim on the engraving of angelic names upon medicinal amulets.** The cover is embossed with his motto: A LTERIUS NON SIT QUI SUUS ESSE POTEST.

**Item: A stoppered vial containing the remnants of a green potion; the label reads 'pro Dorstenio'**

Now we come to something really quite unusual! This was concocted by the master John George Sabellicus himself, and some effort it took me to establish the provenance beyond doubt, as you can imagine. At one point, shortly after leaving Kreuznach, where he had been a professor, he passed through Batenburg and made acquaintance with a chaplain there, who had in his youth been graced with all the beauty of a modern Ganymede, such that he had been a great favourite among the rich and powerful. By one means or another he managed to impress the great Sabellicus, who was much saddened that this Dorstenius - for that was his name - was past the age to be taken as a pupil. In an attempt to please Dorstenius, and to rectify the sad accident of having arrived at Batenburg some years too late to have him as a student, Sabellicus concocted this potion to halt, indeed to reverse, the effects of time, such that by its use one might regain the status of a beardless youth. No modern alchemist has yet surpassed this very compound, or come closer to creating the elixir of eternal life, and at the time the effect was much admired. Unfortunately, although Dorstenius regained his fair complexion and youthful charms entirely, for which he displayed becoming gratitude to Sabellicus, his untimely death a few months thereafter quite prevented him providing the living testimony to his master's genius that he would otherwise have furnished: by some mischance he was struck by a sudden blight that ate away his skin from without and consumed him as with hellfire from within. Doubtless owing to his grief at this accident, Sabellicus never published the details of his potion, and my own careful studies of the last remaining drops have so far established only that it is based on that most useful of alchemical elements, arsenic.

**Item: Recipe to bottle the scent of hypocrisy**

Take as much dried marjoram as you desire and pound it fine. Mix into a paste with almond oil and simmer with honey.

**Item: A plain knife, four inches long and unadorned, with the property that any shadow which falls upon it is severed from its accustomed object.**

These things were once in great vogue among students at that acclaimed academy which is the jewel of Iceland and the centre of all learning in the far north. In the early days, before Iceland fell under the sway of the Church and its university trained only churchmen, any pupil who could demonstrate the requisite ability might apply to be taught, even if he lacked the wealth to pay. These poor students had their lodgings and their lessons for free, and their food and drink likewise, but at the end of their studies they had to pass out through a special door of such unique construction that it would catch and hold their shadows fast. Those who could not get free were condemned to remain, serving as slaves, but those who had either the skill and subtlety to work their shadows free, or the resolve and courage to cut them off with such a knife as this and go out into the world shadowless, had five or seven years of study gratis.

 **Item: 3 volumes of the Steganographia of Trithemius.** Read one way, a description of how words may be encoded concisely, relevant to modern telegraphy; read another, a description of how messages may be transmitted by enslaved spirits, as is done today by the Church.

**Item: A demon, bearing the dress and form of the collector in his youth.**

Another rarity, this; one of the finest specimens I've had an opportunity to see. You will observe the eager expression has been perfectly preserved: to see it you would think the fires of inquiry still burned within. You will observe also the graceful bearing, well captured by the taxidermist's skill, and the tasteful clothing: here you see the shape of a most desirably accomplished and socially acceptable man, fit to be wheeled out and put on display for any occasion; at the same time, you could swear that a vital pulse still beat within, and that the outward form but reflected the inward character. I still thank the happy chance by which I came upon it engrossed in my old textbooks, and by which I managed to subdue it and put it on display. I thank, too, the chance by which we came to be two creatures, not one, so that I have such an obedient form to delight my friends, while resting quite untroubled by its wilder impulses and untrammelled fancies. I cannot recommend strongly enough the brisk separation, when your term of study is done, from the more troublesome aspects of youth.

**Author's Note:**

> The above is a perfectly good recipe for Mishmishiya, pretty much taken in its basic form from the Baghdad Cookery Book, although I would recommend normal, animal lamb myself, not my substituted vegetable lamb, which you may find hard to come by. The scent of hypocrisy is likewise an acceptable modern version of Sampsuchinon (after a suggestion by Joann Fletcher): marjoram is the herb of the crocodile god Sobek; the crocodile was taken into christian iconography as a symbol of hypocrisy.


End file.
